


Moonrise and dawn light

by AboardAMoose



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry Tolkien, M/M, Massage, Masturbation, Mpreg, Pregnant Sex, Water Sex, erotic birth, graphic birth, pregnant Thranduil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 21:45:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13373661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AboardAMoose/pseuds/AboardAMoose
Summary: Thranduil seeks out the best Healer in Middle Earth to guide him through the birth of his children. Elrond seeks something else.





	1. Chapter 1

There was no sign of it as the company entered the valley. Too far. The gleaming edges of the escorts’ uniforms caught the autumn sunlight, gold upon gold, a river of molten metal rolling beside and before the Elvenking. It was a sight Elrond Peredhel knew well, for this was the tenth year of negotiations between the three elven kingdoms – the Greenwood, the Golden Wood, and Imladris – attempting to agree protections for the paths to the Grey Havens, and the fifth he had hosted. This year, the great horned beast Thranduil rode was the palest grey, and even from a distance Elrond could see the elf’s proud stature, as upright as any of his soldiers.

There was no sign of it as the company swarmed inside the main courtyard. Too busy. The mess of gold and green resolved into two score elves, bristling with spears that arced skyward in unison as line upon line brought their horses to an immediate halt and launched to the ground. Right hands crossed to their swords, left gripped their spears. In the centre of it, Thranduil dismounted in a swirl of robes and shining hair.

There was no sign of it as the elves that blocked the King’s path parted for him. Too covered. The soldiers melted into invisible gaps between their companions, row by row, and Thranduil walked smoothly towards the welcoming party. He emerged from the centre, staring blue eyes forwards, unfaltering, chin lifted boldly high, half a fingers’ width higher than any other elf Elrond knew, conveying more pride with power than any other too. As the final row parted, Thranduil emerged. A long cloak was fastened at the front, flowing almost to the floor, like a curtain about his entire body. He could have been two Halflings stood atop one another dressed like that, and no one would have been the wiser.

Only when the Elvenking drew level with his host did he show sign of it. When one hand rose to his heart, and he inclined his head in greeting, his forearm pressed at the fabric shielding his torso, giving it definition. His stomach bulged. Hugely. Thranduil was pregnant.

Elrond did not blink. Returned the bow. “You are most welcome here, Elvenking.”

All the while, his ears buzzed.

-o-

The concealment did not last. That evening, when the guest of honour was announced, Thranduil stepped forward to the soft sound of collective inhalation, as what had been rumour became fact.

It seemed to Elrond that the woodland elf had deliberately chosen clothing that accentuated his pregnancy. The pale silver chest of his shirt was stiff, structured, glittering with embroidery, the fingers of a tree’s branches reaching to his collarbones as they did from his crown. Then the fabric was cinched tight against his skin by a band of cloth, before flowing over the distended roundness of his stomach. The bulge was further accentuated by the light fabric against the dark of his outer robe, a creation that seemed more sculpted than sewn. Its collar rose high above his shoulders, and cut sharp lines to the floor.

As Thranduil walked forwards, he revealed legs clad to the knee in shining leather, and metal tips clipped against the floor with each step.

For one moment, Elrond’s traitorous mind thought of how stretched the laces of his guest's leggings must be, and his chest jolted unexpectedly.

Then Thranduil was before him, and the formalities began.

-o-

Throughout the evening, the leaders of the two elven settlements discussed business. The spiders had been restless, the wildmen too adventurous, the humans middling. Growth had returned to a desecrated copse in the Greenwood that Elrond remembered well, but creeping disease had taken hold in a pond in the valley that Thranduil recalled vaguely. Word was exchanged - of lands East and West, of acquaintances and enemies – as were gifts.

At last, as the plates were being cleared, Elrond lowered his voice. “But you must be tired.”

Thranduil’s gaze neither faltered nor dropped. “Tired?”

This close, Elrond could see that more than just the elf's waistline had changed with his pregnancy. His face had filled, just so, softening as it stored fat for its creation. His eyes, however, were hard as flint, and shining with challenge. “After your journey,” the half elf was forced to clarify.

“Not at all. I know my people are looking forward to an evening at your hearth.”

Elrond nodded. “Then may I invite you to the Hall of Fires?”

-o-

Between the shadowy pillars of the vast room, Elrond watched. He watched the ruler of the Greenwood at rest. One hand pinched the stem of a goblet half-full with deep red wine, the rim drooping towards the floor but the liquid never rolling beyond it. The other curled around the arm of his chair. Leaning back, the foot of his left leg crossed over the knee of the other. His stomach was lifted into the air. His lips were parted; Elrond wondered if the weight made it hard to breathe.

Even hidden and at a distance, Elrond could tell that more than one child lay curled within that dome.

The rhythm of the storyteller’s voice seemed to wash over the reclining King as it would so much marble. So still.

Yet when a tray went crashing to the floor, breaking the peace with the shattering of glass, the weight seemed immaterial and the serenity a memory. Thranduil was on his feet before the shards bounced once, a long knife gleaming in hand and half a dozen guards at his side. Protectors that had been just as relaxed as their King an instant before.

Elrond found he too had surged forwards. Towards Thranduil. Forwards.

He turned to leave soon afterwards.

-o-

When the half-elf reached his bedroom, a messenger was waiting.

“The King of the Greenwood wishes a private audience in the morning. We will fetch you when he wakes.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Mentions of previous miscarriage

The pale morning light slipped and slid through the streets of Rivendell, and Thranduil stood upon the great balcony his suite afforded him, leaning in to the sun’s caress. Below, in the grounds, his people had begun assembling to run their drills, the ranks of warriors shaking off the arms of lovers and the grip of last night’s drink, ready to train. He heard the knock, the announcement of Elrond’s presence, and bade him enter – but the half-elf paused in the doorway. His stare was a buzz of magnetism at the base of Thranduil’s neck.

“See this, Master Elrond.”

The elf’s feet were silent, but his presence unmistakeable, and seconds later Elrond stood beside him, eyes on the scattering of soldiers.

“Watch.”

A silent signal, and disparate groups of elves merged into rigid lines of standard formation in the time it took for Elrond to blink. Another flutter of black eyelids, and they began to move. It was slow at first, each individual running through a rhythm of long stretches, reaching and lifting in almost leisurely movements, out to the front, the side, swooping down the ground, then back up, fingers extending towards the sky, tendons straining upwards, tight and tense. They moved as one, each movement perfectly matched to every other’s, and from a distance the group swayed back and forth like one body, blades of grass rippling in the same wind. Thranduil found himself breathing in time to their movements, as he so often had, before…

One of the infants within him aimed a kick at his kidneys, and his inhalation faltered.

Elrond noticed. His fingers flickered against the stone. But he did not look away from the soldiers.

Soon enough, the troop began to pair off, wheeling to face each other to practice their blocks. Long braids of black and brown hair shone as heads twisted and lunged. The clash of steel gauntlets and steel caps and steel blades and steel chest plates broke the heavy quiet of Rivendell’s morning, and summoned onlookers from across the residence. Scholars and scribes, poets and playwrights.

“They will do this for hours.” The jealous ferocity of pride tinged Thranduil’s voice.

“Quite the sight.” It was barely a murmur. “But that is not why you called me to see you.”

“No.” Thranduil turned, and a steady silver stare met his. His long robe brushed against the smooth stonework as he moved, and the hem picked up the detritus left by Autumn’s first scattering of leaves. “I am soon to need the services of a Healer. I need the best.”

Elrond’s expression was inscrutable, and for the longest moment his mouth did not move.

_Damn it, was the wretched half-elven going to make him beg?_

Then he nodded, just the once. “Of course. It would be an honour to provide you with any assistance I can.”

“You will of course be properly recompensed for your time and talents.”

A drift of dark hair fell victim to the breeze and danced upon Elrond’s shoulders as he softly demurred, “That will not be necessary. Though an examination will be, should you be committing yourself and your children to my care.”

It was the strangest phrase, and yet somehow Thranduil found himself acquiescing more quickly than he had meant to. Elrond stepped inside, leaving the crashes of staged violence behind, and moved towards the bedroom. Thranduil let his eyes linger a moment more on the elves he had brought to Rivendell and their onlookers. The kinks in his shoulders and his spine and even, somehow, _between_ his ribs – they cried out to be swept away by the familiar, rolling routines of the exercise. But he would not be their spectacle.

When he entered the bedroom, he found Elrond stacking pillows into a supportive seat against the bed’s headboard. The half-elf gestured towards it. “If you could please remove your shirt and your robe, and sit. I will be back in a moment.”

At first, Thranduil thought the Healer’s withdrawal was some strange nod to modesty, but then Elrond disappeared into the bathroom beyond, and the splash of water on marble drifted through the open doorway. So the Elvenking obeyed.

The shirt’s loose cotton – too warm for much more – slipped easily from Thranduil’s skin, and he repressed a sigh of relief. Even that chafed against the sensitive skin, not least his chest, which the slightest touch could turn to an uncomfortable prickling of half-pain, half-pleasure. When he sat, the carefully prepared structure of cushions cupped the small of his back with just enough support, and titled him so that the great weight he carried around his middle fell low enough to prevent it crushing his lungs.

Alone, he stared down at the foreign shape of his pale body, the rounding pectorals, the huge jutting mound of his stomach, stretched out of all proportion. It was his entire horizon, rising high above him as he woke each morning and preceding him through every door. It had been months since he had been able to see his feet. He stroked his hands down to cup growing teats, squeezing gently in an attempt to alleviate the ache; his thumb flicked over his nipples – both raised – and he was rewarded by two tiny flares of sharp heat. Half his instincts urged him to fling his hands away and never let anything heavier than breath touch those bundle of nerves ever again. The other half urged him to pinch, to twist and squeeze – oh… - to find someone to suck and bite and wrangle every last burst of pleasure those swelling nubs could offer and…

And Elrond would be returning any moment.

When he did, the half-elf found the Elvenking perfectly still, hands at his side. The soft scent of willow followed Rivendell’s Master into the room, wafting promise of health and healing.

“What do you know already?” Elrond asked, as he approached the bed. “Of the pregnancy?”

“My heat came upon me a moon before last midwinter, so I have carried for 10 months. There are three. There have so far been no complications beyond the sickness and a penchant for smoked fish.”

Elrond nodded, absorbing this information without question. “I am going to examine you, if you have no objections.”

The buzz of arousal still crackled on Thranduil’s skin as the other elf reached for him, but he held resolutely still. The touch was gentle at first, starting where the King’s sternum had once been, feeling around to the place that had historically been known as his waist, then smoothing in firm strokes across the dome of his stomach. Concentration dented Elrond’s forehead as he urged the skin to give up its secrets, and slid to the underside of that huge belly, lifting it, weighing it, as if it really were the foreign extension it seemed. Then Elrond began to dig deeper, thumbs making hard lines of pressure against Thranduil’s taut flesh as he explored the outline of first one, then another, then the last of the tiny forms that curled within the King. The activity set off a wave of protest twitches from the babes, and though they hardly had room to flail with abandon, Thranduil’s stomach rippled.

“Forgive me, little ones. Hush,” Elrond murmured, and Thranduil did not immediately realise who he was talking to.

The nimble fingers which had ventured across the tight skin of his pregnancy then came to rest on his wrist. Elrond’s mouth pursed as he counted and all Thranduil could think of was the way his skin was humming from the confident touch and that mouth – ai Valar – that mouth on his nipples or – oh, Maker – his belly button, engulfing, suction, the graze of teeth...  

“Slightly fast. We should watch that. Are you exercising?”

“A little.”

“It would not hurt. Eating enough?”

“Constantly.”

“Is this your first pregnancy?”

“No.”

“Your second?”

“My ninth. None have lasted the year within me.”

Thranduil had braced for this moment. For the pity, or for the fear he felt to be reflected back from another’s eyes. Instead, he felt Elrond’s grip slip from his wrist – entirely deliberately – to take his hand. The strong fingers of the Healer slotted between his own and squeezed, just the once. Determination turned silver eyes as hard as the steel that encased his soldiers. “These ones shall.” Hope leapt within him.

And then the touch vanished entirely, Elrond turned away, and Thranduil found his shirt being returned to him.

“It is late to be travelling – just over 8 weeks before you are due. Did you want to birth here, at the Healing Houses? You are more than welcome."

Thranduil’s gaze was pulled towards Elrond’s hands, the slack hold upon the fabric. A fleck of ink lingered by the elf’s elbow, a spot his scrubbing had missed. Scholars and scribes. Outside, a fragment of his personal guard practiced.

He took the shirt. “They are children of the Greenwood. They will be born beneath its boughs. I am fine to travel.”

-o-

Elrond closed the door and forced himself to walk all the way back to his office before he stopped and rubbed his hands together. His palms whispered their secrets to each other.

In the centuries of their acquaintance, he had never once laid a hand on Thranduil Oropherion.

Somehow, despite the logic of it, he had expected his skin to be cold. But he had radiated heat, a warmth like a fire on a frozen, empty night, coaxing him closer.

“My Lord?”

Elrond whirled to find Erestor waiting for him.

“Good morning, mellon nin.” Without a beat, Elrond asked, “Is the cook at her post yet? I have a question for her.”

“A question, my Lord?” 

“Yes. About our stocks of smoked fish.”

-o- 

Thranduil had hoped for the relief of a cooling wind as he returned to the balcony to watch his people practice. He was disappointed. The sun had risen and warmed the morning, and the tree that leant its apple-laden boughs towards him turned the air to syrup. He was shifting, he was burning, and he could still feel the ghost of every one of Elrond’s touches.

He had to use the stone rise of the balustrade to hoist the weight of his stomach out of the way, and with the twisting pillars hiding his lower half from view, he reached the hand that Elrond had grasped towards his leggings and the throbbing length within.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: A reference to miscarriage

It was like riding in the midst of a near-silent storm. At every side, the dust was whipped to fury by the hooves of a score of horses, but the elves upon them were statues, mouths closed, eyes forwards, unblinking. Their sculptor had rendered them mute. Even when scouts swapped in and out of the mêlée, no word passed between those life-size golden figurines.

Yet no discussion was needed to agree their pace. Elrond had taken the path between his lands and Thranduil’s many times through the centuries, and knew that the wind raised by their charge was nothing against the gale those beasts could have summoned. Before him, at the centre of the ring of soldiers, the Royal elk took long, casual strides, rolling lopes that had the winking silver of Thranduil’s circlet dip and rise, dip and rise. His legs were spread wide across his saddle.

For three days, then four, they rode like that, towards the home of the woodland elves. For four days, Thranduil gave no sign the ride troubled him. He rode as straight as any one of them, his eyes as fixed, constantly, his trust in his scouts absolute, constantly, his golden hair as much a banner as any herald could bear into battle. The tips of his heels flashed in the sunlight when he urged his elk onwards, and all the while his belly lay proudly before him.

And Elrond watched for any flicker in the strength that carried him onwards.

From his position a mere horse-length behind the King each day, and from his seat at his table most evenings, he watched with a Healer’s eyes and the eyes of something more. And yet, not the slightest sign that the weight of his pregnancy was even an inconvenience.

Then the fifth day came, and - with it - rain. Sheets of it in their path, tiny missiles flung from the heavens and piercing every inch of skin. Cloaks were thrown round shoulders and they slowed their pace yet further for fear the horses might slip, or worse still, that the great, steady elk might stumble, still bearing its triply-precious burden.

And as the afternoon of the fifth day waned, just for a moment, Thranduil let weariness show. Only Elrond was directly behind him, only he had been watching and waiting, and only he saw Thranduil transfer his reins to his right hand. The elbow of his left arm cut a sharp angle against the landscape, and the heavy cloak across the King’s back stretched, making room for a hand that pressed against muscles that must surely be aching, radiating pain. Thranduil’s head bowed slightly, turning to the side as he gave the full weight of his attention to the tender flesh. His hood hid most of his face, but Elrond saw his lips parts and release a shuddering exhale.

Then lightning flashed, the silhouette vanished and Thranduil’s eyes were back on the horizon, the reins back in both hands.

-o- 

Lemongrass. Peppermint. Chamomile. Lavender. The sweet white flowers of marjoram.

The scents of each plant bled into the air, mingling as the fresh leaves surrendered their essence to Elrond’s pestle and mortar. It was the smell of healing, of promise, of relief – and the half-elf could, for a while at least, feel as if he was home, in the airy rooms of his halls.

How many times had his hands ground and twisted like this? How many thousands upon thousands of herbs had he turned to paste with this simple force? How many hours had he spent listening to the rub and scrape of rounded stone against rounded stone, the wet tear of fibre becoming the squelch of macerated tissue? For how many human years had that been the symphony that accompanied his pulse?

This time at least, there were no ranks of men and women laid out waiting for his magic and his touch. Just one elven King, though one who might not welcome it.

-o- 

Thranduil dreamed. Thranduil dreamed of an empty crib. Thranduil dreamed of three pulsing cords that shrivelled, wasted, twisted and fell to dust. Thranduil dreamed of bringing forth children of wax, that crumbled when he tried to cradle them. Thranduil dreamed of the black tentacles of the creeping sickness that endlessly threatened his Kingdom. Thranduil dreamed of those oily tendrils filling his womb as well as his trees.

Those vines burst from his naval, his spine, gripped his shoulder –

Gripped his shoulder.

A knife was in the Elven King’s hand before he awoke and at the throat of his night-time intruder before he opened his eyes.

“My Lord.”

Janwë. Just Janwë.

And it was light.

“Is it time to move on?”

“The sun has not yet set, my liege.” The foot-elf’s eyes held Thranduil’s own. They did not drop once to the blade at his collar, or the tangle of sheets about his King’s bare legs.

Thranduil drew away, and returned the knife to its home beneath his pillow. “What, then, has driven you to disturb my rest?”

Janwë stepped back, the proper distance, and his touch fell from Thranduil’s shoulder. “Lord Elrond is outside.”

They had not wanted to tell the leader of another realm that theirs already slept.

“Bring my robe. Water. Wine.”

-o-

The bed was made, lamps lit and Thranduil decent when the Lord of Rivendell stepped into the tent minutes later. The Elven King reclined back against a carved chair of walnut, a seat which appeared delicate enough but held his weight faithfully and did not groan when he moved, despite his bulk.

“My Lord Elrond.”

The dark-haired elf inclined his head. “Good evening. I hope I am not disturbing you.”

Thranduil flapped a hand in lazy dismissal, and in the same gesture indicated that his guest should sit if he wished. And then, as if only just noticing the objects that had caught his attention the moment Elrond entered the room, flicked his gaze towards it, tilted his head and asked, “But what is this?”

Elrond set a fair-sized clay box upon a table, alongside a jar of the same stone. “I am aware of the burden that carrying one child – let alone three – places upon the body. This is a poultice I have made for many bearing parents before you, to ease any aches so many days in the saddle may cause.”

He had seen. The Healer might be trying to lighten his voice, speak in vagaries, but he had seen the one moment of weakness the woodland elf had allowed himself. In all this time.

Thranduil lifted his goblet to his lips, to buy himself a moment’s thought.

“It is, as you say, to be expected. But I have no need of your balms at this time.”

Though he had hardly settled there, Elrond rose from his stool. “I did not mean to intrude.”

The act of standing raised a rush of shadow. Before the woodland elf’s staring eyes, black strands gripped at the creamy silk of his robe.

It had come.

No.

The last vestiges of the dream faded, and it was just him, Elrond, and a dancing lantern.

The words tumbled from his traitorous tongue. “Is there anything for-” But no, he would not ask if the Healer could supply him with a tincture for dreamless sleep. Would not confess. Would not face disappointment. And silver eyes were waiting for him to finish his sentence. “-my feet. They swell.”

“Of course my Lord.”

-o- 

Magic lived within Elrond’s fingers. Thranduil had known that before, many a tale had been sung, but not until this moment had he felt it. Nerves protested, delicate bones clicked, tendons shifted and dull pain sharpened at first, as the half-elf began with his toes. Thranduil almost sent him away. Then those hands moved to the arches of his foot, a confident grip encircling the top, and firm thumbs sweeping across the base. And the ache moved. It took time, a relentless repetition of determined movement and manipulation of flesh, but under Elrond’s hands the pain lifted. That which had been more bird claw than elf foot fell limp, the cramps banished.

Then Elrond turned to Thranduil’s heel, and then his ankle. It was there the swelling was the worst, the neat net of veins becoming swamped by fluid until – at the end of a day atop a horse – any definition that had existed between foot and leg was lost, and his body winced within at every step. Elrond paid all that no mind, and – sure and true – began to rub in circles. Again, the throbbing rose but it was leagues below what the Elven King could bear, and as the half elf’s thumbs dug and smoothed, kneaded and pressed, the ache loosened and became relief. And that in turn became a clear, white pleasure.

Thranduil had expected the touch to end at his ankles, but it did not. It climbed to his calves, his knees, and finally his thighs. The bolts of pleasure jumped before it, and found their home.

Thranduil closed his eyes.

-o- 

Head bent over his task, Elrond did not see the moment it happened. But he felt it. He felt the limb he cradled surrender its resistance, not because of his careful ministrations but because the elf whose leg he held lowered his barriers just enough.

Without a pause in his work, still using the solid movement of the base of his palms to drive the pressure from the King’s flesh, he snatched a glance upwards.

Thranduil’s head was tipped back against the high support of his ornate chair, exposing the expanse of his throat. His dark lashes were closed. And his mouth, that mouth that snarked and ordered its way through the centuries, his mouth fell open, loose. The breaths he took were silent, but Elrond could see from the shift of his chest that they were deep.

Yet Elrond knew better than to think the walls had fallen completely. Those thick black brows were still drawn together in a permanent half-scowl, and those slack lips had not given up a single whisper of a whimper under his touch.

He reached for the second leg.

-o- 

This was dangerous. Thranduil knew that. And yet he could not allow himself to care.

His entire world had narrowed to the hands upon his skin, the warmth of the oil, the brush of fine hair against the leg Elrond was leaning over and the solid, velvet-clad body that the lower half of his body pressed into. Even the children within him were still, touched by the same soporific spell.

Thranduil did not think of the dreams. But he knew the sun was falling away, and that the alternative to this floating, this light, was something his being flinched from.

So when the touch began to slow and pull away, he had the words ready.

“My back. I cannot reach it alone.”

“Of course my Lord.”

When Elrond drew him to the bed, he did not question. When Elrond spread his knees apart for him to sit between, he did not question. When his own body settled back against Elrond’s chest, he did not question.

This was dangerous.

-o-

Gently, so gently at first, Elrond trailed his oil-dipped fingers across the creamy expanse of Thranduil’s back. Little more than a feather’s whisper. The ripple of muscle, the ridges of spine, the rungs of his ribs, the great planes of his shoulder blades. Where was the ache that broke even this noble King’s demeanour?

Just a little pressure, just a little. Enough to feel where tension lay, in the twisting of tendons and mess of strained muscle. His knuckles found the tangled knot at the small of Thranduil’s back, a fist-sized maze of hurt. And in that moment, with that touch, Thranduil’s body lifted away from the pain, with one curving breath that might have been a gasp.

“Hush,” Elrond soothed, “hush.” He moved his hands deliberately away from that spot, and began to stroke at the pregnant elf’s sides in long, languorous motions. “I will make it better.”

Thranduil’s body sunk back into his, and after a few minutes they were closer than before. The golden head dangled against Elrond’s shoulder, and blonde silk mingled with black as it tumbled down the healer’s back. Only once his breath had bottomed out again did Elrond begin to approach the knot that had caused Thranduil to arch away. He worked from the outside in, edging closer in cautious spirals that grazed at the limits of those tangled nerves and worked to coax them into submission before moving away again, never lingering too long. It was a slow, careful dance, and the night spun out before them.

Elrond found himself guided by Thranduil’s breath as much as the sensation revealed by his own skin. He soon realised that, as he approached the most sensitive parts, Thranduil’s breath stopped in his chest or throat, the Elven King turning to stone to brace himself. At those moments, Elrond pushed just a little deeper into the tender flesh, then smoothed away. And Thranduil would breathe again.

As the minutes passed and the sky darkened, Thranduil himself began to move. Elrond felt the shallow shifting movement against his thighs and, after a moment, realised the woodland elf was rolling his hips, seeking a new sensation.

The Rivendell Lord made his decision. He pressed hard against what remained of the knot, and with the flat of two thumbs pushed back and forth. And finally, finally, Thranduil turned his head, nudged a furrowed brow against Elrond’s neck, and groaned.

“Easy now,” Elrond murmured, as Thranduil’s legs twitched again.

It would have been the simplest thing, to reach for him. The King of the Woodland Realm lay all but naked between his Elrond’s thighs and it would have been the most natural of movements to slip his hand forwards and cup the throbbing heat that nestled between Thranduil’s legs. Just one more form of relief this night.

But Elrond did not. Instead, he gentled his touch and, with slow but determined palms, lifted the Elven King’s weight forwards, so his whole back was exposed. At last, he picked up the small clay pot he had brought with him and opened it.

Lemongrass. Peppermint. Chamomile. Lavender. The sweet white flowers of marjoram.      

He spread an even layer of the poultice upon Thranduil’s lower back. The vivid green mixture was still warm from where he had nestled the pot among the coals. The clay of the larger box had held its heat as well, and the long linen strips that Elrond wound about Thranduil’s body exuded comfort twice over, holding the skin of the Elven King’s belly and back in a firm embrace.

As he tied the final piece in place, a flash of blue. Thranduil began to surface from the haze of ease that Elrond had so painstakingly wrought.

The Rivendell Lord helped Thranduil to fall among the sheets, and pulled a comforter to his chest.

For the final time, the Healer caressed the woodland elf. One last hum of magic. “Rest. Sleep.”

Elrond turned to go, but a grip – strong and determined – shot out and tightened around his wrist. “Stay.”

“Of course my Lord."

-o- 

Thranduil slept. And did not dream.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Mentions of previous miscarriage

Each night for the rest of the journey, the Rivendell Lord slept at the Elven King’s side. So it was Elrond that Thranduil reached for when a searing pain began in the deep of his gut, in the deep of the night.

“It has started.”

The Healer rose but did not turn to him. Instead, he stood, abandoned the sheets, and paced a slow circuit around the tent. Candles flickered to life, and by the time he returned to the foot of the bed, a soft glow chased the darkness from every corner. And Thranduil had settled his breath, removed his nightclothes, and lay waiting. The momentary, instinctive flames of panic had been smothered by the heavy veil of dread. He knew what came next.

Thranduil lay like stone while Elrond knelt beside him on the bed, and placed his hands upon the dome of his stomach. The touch was cool against sleep-heated skin. Pressing his head back into the mound of pillows, the Elven King’s gaze found and fixed upon the thick hangings above. They had been so close to home.

And he waited, while the half-elf poked and prodded the specimen of his bulk, until irritation surged through his self-imposed stillness. “It is lower. Inside.”

Silver eyes shone with firelight as they flicked upwards. “I know. May I?”

One sharp nod of that golden head. At the nudge of Elrond’s hands, he spread his legs. The Healer’s fingers reached his core and pressed. The ache flared, an internal bruise.

“Only the beginning.” Elrond’s voice was a murmur the sentries would not hear. “But yes, your passage is forming. I suggest you rest, try to sleep if you can. I will tell your guard we are not moving on today.”

How could he rest? With his fists as levers, Thranduil pushed himself upwards to grab at the half-elf, but the Rivendell Lord had already withdrawn, was kneeling before the brazier. “You must stop it. With your herbs, your magic, you can stop it. That is why I came to you.”

Elrond did not even look up. “I cannot stop it.”

The smothering dread became a cold fury. Each time, he told himself not to hope. Each time, the fragile prayer that he formed despite himself shattered. Thranduil could feel himself falling, silent, into a grim, familiar grip – and there was nothing he could do to halt the descent.

Then, a thud against his side. His hand flew to it, his head shot up. “One lives still. You can save it. You will.” Thranduil was on his feet.

“Save it?” Surprise flashed over the dark-haired elf’s face, and – still kneeling – he turned. Orange light threw his features into sharp relief, and shadows licked at his cheekbones. “You know it is not yet your time?”

The swell of pain. The rip. The rush. The burn. A jagged agony that went beyond the physical.

“This is how it starts.”

Then Elrond was beside him again, and the pain was a memory. “You are not losing them. It is not your time.” No longer the Healer’s hushed entreaty, but the herald’s firm certainty. “This is just your body preparing itself. There are weeks yet before their birth.”

Thranduil was mute, frozen by rage. What was this trickery? Then Elrond took his hands, placed them upon his stomach, and covered them with his own. Vilya’s gold burned.

“Close your eyes. Think about my touch. Nothing else.” A command.

It was difficult, at first, with the swirl of emotions he trapped inside.

And then it wasn’t.

His mind seemed to drop, and he was… within himself. An amber glow, not unlike the candlelight that bathed their room, resolved into three distinct forms behind his eyelids. They were curled, tucked tight. They had faces and fingers. And the links that connected their lights to his own blazed with life.

“There are two. Only two.” But Elrond was there to wave the dark away.

“Your sons are sharing.”

His sons. Two translucent nets resolved before his inner sight. One shrouded the light of one child, the other encased two at once. The forms turned to each other. Their hands almost touched. He knew without Elrond having to speak that the third was a girl. A daughter.

“They’re fine. They’re sleeping. They’re not ready to see you yet.”

Thranduil opened his eyes. Elrond was looking at him.

The dark-haired elf moved their joined hands to the top of his stomach, the other to the side. “Your boys are here, and here.”

“And her?”

The Healer transferred their grip to the base of his belly. “Here.”

A foot kicked hard against his palm. Strong, so alive, and daring him to hope. And there was Elrond, tall, so close, and daring him to trust.

But he could not.

Instead, he waited. He waited for the rip, for the rush. Or for the pain to end.

The day passed in a sort of blindness. With every joule of his energy driven within, the sun rose and fell, elves walked within inches of the tent’s walls and birds perched in its canopy, and Thranduil paid no heed. Instead, under the magnifying force of his attention, every microscopic flutter his children made was like the beating wing of the great eagles, each inhale the filling of a gaping cavern. And throughout it all, the deepening ache as his body split from within.

It was a long, slow tearing, cell by cell.

Elrond made him tea, convinced him to eat a little, but mostly kept his distance. Let him sit, cross-legged, straight-backed, and centre inwards, as nerve after nerve began to burn and his tissues separated. Each breath drew the hurt a fraction further, opening him up.

Then came the rip. And the blood.

Despite himself, Thranduil hung his head and cried out.

Hands gripped his forearms.

“I have you.”

And the pain was gone. The rush wasn’t the unstoppable slide of another wasted babe from his womb. It was relief. Thranduil shook under the onslaught, and folded into the Healer’s shoulder.

Elrond took his hand. He found the back of one child, his brother, his sister. Then he placed the Elven King’s hands between his legs, at the lips that had formed there. The nerves within his flesh sparked and spiked, in a way that was new.

-o- 

“I want to get clean.”

Thranduil paced the confines of the tent. He was dressed, his hair brushed out, the blood cleared away. But despite his Healer’s appeals, he had hardly sat since his body’s change. A fiercer beast had never before been caged.

“I know this land. This is my land. There’s a pool, not far from here.” His blue eyes latched onto Elrond’s silver ones. “Come with me.”

-o-

Elrond had been born when the Havens of Sirion still stood, dwelt in the arches of Eregion, fought at the side of Gil-Galad,

Yet in all his centuries, he had never seen a sight like this one. And he let his eyes feast.

Thranduil, as comfortable in his nudity as in the embellished robes of his self-made state, entered the pool from the shallows. The moon, as full as his belly, bathed him in a silver light. His pale skin glowed until it was swallowed by the water. It was at his thighs now, those creamy legs that Elrond had pulled to his lap and made shine with oil of rose. Clouds of steam clung to the water’s surface, swirling up at Thranduil’s hips, reaching for his torso, buffeted by his languorous movement. Then the Elven King’s knees bent, and the water claimed all but his neck and his golden head. The long sheet of his hair fanned behind him, as he kicked off the bed and propelled himself towards the deep.

Elrond walked the bank as Thranduil swam, matching the pull of the King’s muscled arms with his own stride. Until Thranduil found the middle of the pool and stopped, turned on his back, and floated.

At the water’s edge, the half-elf sat. The land had shifted and become a wall against the depths. The rock on which he dwelt fell straight into several feet of water. And feeling like little more than a child, the Lord of Rivendell removed his shoes, rolled up his leggings, and submerged his legs up to the knees. It was warm, and a gentle ripple of a wave meant it lapped higher than intended, dampening fabric.

It was Thranduil that caused the swell.

The Elven King had turned on his back and trusted the water with his weight, and that of the elflings he carried within him. The slow motion of his legs kept him in place, and all that could be seen of his body was two islands: his face, and the peak of his distended stomach. And for the first time that Elrond had seen, Thranduil began to stroke the stretched skin that housed his offspring. It was so casual, absentminded almost, as one would twist a quill while thinking, but his fingers broke the surface and trailed over the white flesh. A thousand droplets followed his fingertips, fragmented like the shattering of so many diamonds, and slid back to the depths in rivulets.

Then the fingers disappeared again. The circumference of Thranduil’s stomach grew and shrunk as his body rose and fell. What were those hands doing below the water? What skin, so sensitive after the day’s ordeals and months of strain, did they trace and tease? Those long, clever warrior hands that could pluck a bow as well as grasp a sword that became an extension of his own arm.

“I know you want me.” The low declaration rolled through the mist, regardless of the soldiers posted within earshot at intervals around the bank.

Then the Elven King was gone, beneath the water. A tug of fear – had he caught his foot in the weeds – and then Elrond spotted movement, the glow of a body below the surface and coming closer.

Thranduil broke through, just inches from the Healer, water streaming from his crown to his shoulders like living snakes of glass.

“This is my forest, don’t you think I know?”

Elrond’s heart thudded once, twice – then the hands he could not stop thinking of were on his thighs and dragging him forwards until he was half-in, half-out of the water, his hips at the edge. In one smooth movement, his leggings were discarded and then all the world dissolved beyond the mouth upon his cock.

One long lick striping the ridge of the underside, one moment’s pressure of tongue against tip, and then… heat, suction and a flood of blood so rapid it burned. Thranduil sucked like a man who had not drunk in days, like it was his own pleasure he sought after a decade’s abstinence, like the half-elf’s body was a battlefield he was determined to overwhelm. Elrond was defenceless under the assault and surrendered to its frenzy. He locked his arms behind himself, propping himself upright, his ankles hooking into the Elven King’s shoulders to wrench him closer, drive himself deeper, and all the while Thranduil grasped his buttocks to do the same, as if just by trying hard enough they could smash themselves together and make their two bodies one. He gasped at the stars, for mercy and for an eternity of this.

The pleasure crested as rapidly as it began. Elrond’s fingers tore at the stone, and his hips jackhammered in a desperate race for release. Thranduil rode the movement, grip tightening hard enough to bruise and shoulders lifting out of the water.

And then, with a swallow and a cracked moan, it was over. The hands and the mouth withdrew. Hot though he was, lungs still heaving, Elrond followed them into the water, shucking off his suddenly clinging shirt as he did so. His legs slipped against Thranduil’s, his arms encircling him, the delicious slide of skin against skin. He kicked to keep them upright, buoyant and close. 

Eyes as dark as the pool, the Elven King whispered, “Touch me.”

Elrond wanted to. Valar, he wanted to. But when he traced a line across the wood elf’s jaw, his flesh was like ice. “Not here. Inside.”


	5. Chapter 5

That they approached the Elven King’s stronghold became clear from miles away. The guards’ careful trot had become a canter at midmorning, their break to lunch was long enough only for the horses to recover their wind and not a moment later, and – as they rode – their rigid formation slipped and shifted as individuals chuntered forwards. And then there were the people, the elves in ever more frequent clusters of homes. The hooves of the company summoned them to the road, the sound as effective as the call of any horn to those sensitive elvish ears. They dropped from trees and turned from their tasks to watch Thranduil pass.

Heads ducked in bows as he galloped by, so all Thranduil saw were so many shining heads of dark hair. But Elrond, in second place behind the great elk, saw how those brows lifted the moment respect allowed. Dozens of pale faces, so many beacons radiating awe, delight and wonder, eagerly followed the King’s own light. Fervent love for the elf that had stepped into his father’s place, saved them, led them home, defended them time and time again with unmatched ferocity and unwavering watchfulness.

The company was racing the sunlight by the time the fortress drew into view, a charge worthy of war plains more than the knotted trail, and the elves lining their path had become a throng. Blossoms as light and white as snow descended from the trees as they approached, until they rode through a gently swirling blizzard of velvet. Thranduil’s hair and cloak were littered with them. And when he turned in his saddle, caught Elrond’s eye and laughed, the Rivendell Lord knew his must be too.

The crowd at the fortress’ great doors was resplendent in the deep green and gold of their house. Trumpets blared, voices lifted, and the King and his company reared to a halt in the centre of the household. Two figures stood out, from the shifting mass of Silvan bodies, in burgundy and dark navy, but Elrond had no need of any distinguishers. These two he would find in any room, no matter how devoid of flame or brimming with forms.

“My sons.” He lost track of horse, King and anything else as he held first one child to him, then the other.

“We received your summons Ada,” Elladan said needlessly, the joy at seeing his father again creasing quickly into professional concern.

“And see why you need us,” Elrohir finished. The quicksilver of his eyes, the twin of not just his brother’s but his sire’s, followed Thranduil into the cavernous mouth of the halls.

“I do need you,” Elrond confirmed, and suddenly he was weary.

Janwë was at his elbow a moment later. “My liege has requested your belongings be placed in his rooms. Will you follow me?”

-o-

Thranduil was already there. Stood before a grand mirror, sweeping from the floor to the high, curving ceiling, his fingers combed through his hair. At his feet, a puddle of petals lifted and danced as Elrond moved closer, his robes wafting currents of cool air before him. Those blue eyes were glazed and Elrond knew they were unseeing. He touched the Elven King’s chin, turning it towards him. His skin was cold as marble. When Elrond’s fingers found Thranduil’s wrist, in a gesture both tender and routine, he found a pulse that unsettled him in its unevenness.

“There is to be a feast in your honour as well as mine.” Thranduil’s voice came from far away.

“It can be delayed.”

“In honour of your sons.”

“They can all wait.”

“There are letters they need me to see to.”

“You need to rest.”

For long minutes, Thranduil was silent. The only sound was the slide of Elrond’s fingers through silken strands of palest gold where he had taken up the task, and the flutter of petals to the stones below. Then he drew away. One of the half-elf’s arms, which had snuck around his middle, fell – but Thranduil’s gripped it, entwined with it, and Elrond was led to one of the four doors that ringed the room. Main quarters, bathroom, cupboard and… nursery.

An empty crib. The dark wood twisting in arches overheard, bowed at the base where patient hands had shaped it to ensure a parent could rock the structure. A menagerie of animals pranced along the bars, shining under many varnishes, stag, otter, eagle, horse, wolf, hummingbird. But it held no mattress, no pillows, no blankets, and was the only furnishing in the room.

Thranduil lay a palm at the head of the crib, where the arches formed a hood like the forest’s canopy. A hum of soft light, and the dark wood came alive, leaves sprouting and tiny, berry-sized flowers bursting forth.

“It is time. This room should be made ready.”

But when he turned back to Elrond, only one seeing eye found his. The other was milky white.

“Rest first,” Elrond insisted, and the Elven King did not resist the hand upon his elbow, leading him to bed.

-o-

The whisper of soft fabric against smooth skin. The hushed huff of heavy breaths. The grasp of whitening hands, flexing tendons, gripping arms, hips, sheets. Quiet groans muffled against broad shoulder muscles and feather pillows.

“Deeper!” Spoken it was an order. Whispered it was a plea.

The squeeze of thighs and shuddering torsos. The gentle rolling of hips, waves against the shore of their bodies. Waves that rose, built, and crested.

Relief.

Hands smoothing, gentling quivering limbs. Foreheads meeting, lips drawing fëa back to earth. Eyes fluttering closed.

Twin sighs of contentment.

Bodies nestled. Breathing slowed. A blue stone on a golden ring, narrow fingers on a greatly swollen stomach.

“Sleep.”

-o- 

The King of the Greenwood was home. And the Greenwood celebrated.

To Elrond’s left, his eldest child chatted animatedly to a young she-elf, while to his right his younger son – if only by half an hour – watched the festivities in silence. The lights strung from every tree cast a flickering light over the assembly, already bleached and made strange by the blood-red hues of the setting sun. And the elves danced. With the same synchrony of sinuous movements as they fought and trained, with the same snapping of limbs when the drums thundered, like the strands of the willow tree, whipped against bark in a storm. The weaving, plunging maelstrom thronged in the centre of the clearing, conducted in its movement by a dozen fiddlers and pipers.

The revelry spilled well beyond the dance floor. To one side, tables heaved under the weight of enough food to sustain an army. To the other, the youngest of the Greenwood’s inhabitants – including a number of elf-tweens – performed feats of their own daring, leaping from each other’s shoulders into the trees, and down again in tumbling turns and twists. As Elrond looked on, one she-elf jumped to grab a slender birch branch, and kept going until she had mastered a handstand upon the limb. From there, she dropped again, hung for a moment, before kicking herself up again into the same arrow-straight upside-down position. There she stayed, revolving at her pleasure – three turns, six, a dozen…

Someone was watching him. When Elrond turned, no ripple of surprise was necessary: of course it was Thranduil. The Elven King’s gaze followed the path of his own a moment before, to the she-elf still making lazy loops among the leaves. His dark eyebrows lifted a fraction. Enough to challenge. The half-elf hid his smile in his wine.

Soon, Thranduil was moving among the gathered population, a tall silver spectre, picked out easily from a distance not just by his colouring but by the towering branches he had chosen to adorn his brow this night. Space billowed around him, the dancers falling back to respectful distances as he passed, though their movements continued. The young elves, however, paid him no heed – too absorbed in their acrobatics. Until, all of a sudden, they did.

The gaggle became a neat line of kneeling youths as each one broke from their play to drop to the ground. All except the rotating she-elf, who disappeared. Elrond did not know if his less-than-keen eyes had missed some signal, but after a few moments she dropped from the branches, cradling something silver in her palms. She offered it to Thranduil, but he refused it. Instead, before his gathered Kingdom, before the nobles and soldiers, before Elladan and Elrohir, the Elven King gestured to the Rivendell Lord.

And before the gathered Kingdom, before the nobles and soldiers, before Elladan and Elrohir, she followed the pointing figure’s direction and tucked the shining flower behind Elrond’s ear.

-o-

The Elven King and Rivendell Lord walked through the trees together, leaving the sound of revelry behind, though always staying close enough that the glow from the camp made their passage easier. There were no other lights, no peep of moon or stars away from the clearing. The heavy canopy above let no light through. Thranduil walked barefoot across the leaf litter, while Elrond’s steps were equally silent, feet clad in light slippers.

“How many centuries has it been since you leapt among the trees like those younglings?” the woodelf asked.

“For the sheer pleasure of it?” Elrond’s laugh was startled from him. “Not in this Age.”  _A spring-drenched woodland, far to the West. Before the burden of his Stewardship was settled on his shoulders in blood, filth and fire. With a different King, so different from this one, in every conceivable way different._

Perhaps the moment’s darkness showed, for Thranduil stilled, caught his chin, traced the pointed line of the half-elf’s ear, touched the petals of the flower that nestled there. “Fetch me its twin.”

To hide his face, to prove he could, to breathe an air not so stifled by sap and fertile soil, Elrond scanned the trees, chose, and flew up its branches. It may have been centuries since folly drew him to such heights, but need had certainly driven him to seek the shelter of leaf and bough often. And while he might choose to take his rest in halls upon the ground, he spent time enough with his kin in the Golden Wood, who kept the old ways. It was the work of moments to climb to the tree’s peak, and there, balanced easily among the spindly upper branches, he thrust his head above the canopy.

Clear night air. The kind so cleansing and so cold that he could trace each inhalation beyond his lungs, as it infused with his flesh. And all about him, mithril bright, flowers, tender faces reflecting the light of the heavens. They were as numerous as the stars and emitted a sweet perfume, a scent Elrond had never detected beyond the borders of this great forest.

He plucked the largest, for it was for a King, and began his descent. Then paused. Light, but not from the celebrations. Fireflies, hundreds of them, swirling but not at random. They formed a thick, living ribbon that wove through the trees. And Elrond followed it, flitting from one ancient birch to another with as much surety as any squirrel, until he found a talan. It was bathed in the other-worldly light of a thousand phosphorescent creatures, and at its centre, in a heaped white pallet, was Thranduil.

The flat boards were solid beneath Elrond’s feet as he made one final jump onto the talan, and then he was kneeling by Thranduil’s side. The evening’s crown had been discarded, and it was the simplest of actions to tuck the flower into the Elven King’s braids, and then the most natural of actions to lower his head and find soft lips with his own.

It was the briefest of kisses, before Thranduil drew away to whisper, “I want to show you something.” Then the soft lips returned.

At first, it was just a kiss, the swooping sensation that came with a roused yearning. A moment passed, and then Elrond’s consciousness expanded, and he could feel so much more. Down first, to the dirt which hummed with unimaginable multitudes of life, not just worms and beetles, but tiny teeming things smaller than he could hope to see with the most powerful eye glass. Then the sensation swept outwards, colliding hard with soldier after soldier, solid weight in his awareness – and he knew which ones worked and which slept, which hungered and which was full, which yawned and which thrived. Further still to the forest.

So much life. The thrum of centuries in ancient trees, the bust of new growth, the drift of death. Jewel-bright heat marked foxes hunting, mice scuttling, owls hovering, bats in flight. Everywhere, insects burrowed and bit.

It went on for miles and miles. And at its edges, shadow.

Elrond broke away, and opened his eyes. His own magic had surged in response. And Thranduil, so like the forest, filled with life and tinged with darkness, said, “That is how I knew you wanted me.”

Elrond wanted him now. Somehow, as they had kissed, Thranduil’s hand had found its way past his leggings. He toyed with the half-elf’s cock so leisurely, yet so precisely, as if he held the map in his mind that held the path to Elrond’s pleasure. The Elven King followed those routes faithfully, grazing the edges of a bulging vein, circling the tip just so, dipping below to fondle a suddenly sensitive sack, until Elrond was canting his hips forwards for more.

Instead, once Elrond’s length was hard and hot and his breath heavy, Thranduil drew away, stepped back, and stripped. He had pushed the unresisting half-elf onto his back among plush cushions of velvet and now Thranduil straddled him.

A jolt of arousal thudded through Elrond’s groin, not because of any touch, but because Thranduil lifted his hips, reached behind himself, and removed a glistening plug.

“How long?” Elrond’s voice rasped as if he had not spoken in days.

“All night.”

Thranduil sunk down.

Tight heat.

The glow of a multitude of insects, buffeted as Thranduil threw back his head in a gasp. His mouth hanging loose, eyes closed almost in agony. The huge swell of his body rolling forwards, as the King began to move.

-o- 

Full. So full. Stomach stretched to bursting, arse clenching around Elrond’s long, thick length. Those Healer’s hands ranging over his thighs, his so heavily bulging pregnancy. And then fingers, inside him, stroking walls that were new.

Thranduil reached for grounding, for purchase, for solace, and his hands found bark. His nails dug deep. A cry escaped his lungs, desperately rutting, racing towards completion, almost sobbing with rising need.

Then he shattered, and dawn began to lighten the wood.

The fireflies had vanished. Birds lifted their voices in response to his groans and Elrond’s grunts, welcoming him home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies for the delay. House buying is no simple task it appears.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Graphic, erotic birth, mentions of miscarriage.

Thranduil’s back was in near constant spasm. A metal band of pressure clamped about the huge circumference of his stomach for heartbeat after stuttering heartbeat, long minutes locked in a vicious vice until it released him for a few breaths of recovery.

Yet Elrond was there. His mouth at Thranduil’s core, licking and sucking as the pain rolled through the Elven King, tricking his nerves for a while at least, convincing them they were being treated rather than tortured. For a while at least, Thranduil could grip handfuls of Elrond’s hair, fighting, forcing more and more of the contact, dragging the friction with him even when his hips fought upwards in thrusts that the half-elf willingly rode. For a while at least, Thranduil could cry out and arch his back in a futile attempt to get way from a pain that was within, and act as if his moans were not edged in a desperation quite unlike ecstasy. For a while at least, Elrond pretended that he did not know Thranduil was in labour, and Thranduil pretended in turn.

They surged through the storm together. As pain crept in relentless crescendo, Elrond followed the Elven King’s urging, fell to his task of drawing pleasure. He licked long lines between the wood elf’s folds, testing and teasing, until fingers as tense as metal claws moved his head upwards and he sucked at the nub there, rolling his tongue over and over it. The sensitive, sensitised body in his arms roiled and shook, panting under the onslaught, whimpering truly when Elrond touched his stomach or strayed too near his stretching centre when the contraction was peaking. Then, as with the great crash of a wave, the pain would fall, and Elrond’s touch would be too much. Thranduil never had to tell him, Elrond would always know, and the half-elf would rise up, back away. The Rivendell Lord would shift his touch to light caresses of Thranduil’s cock, staying well away from the cluster of nerves at the head, as his mouth would carefully lave at the wood elf’s chest or neck or chin. Comfort, promise.

For a while, it worked. Then Thranduil could feign denial and adopt avoidance no longer. He was sweat-soaked, stained, the vice near constant and suddenly he could not bear to be touched.

“Stop.”

Elrond drew away at once. The silver eyes bore into him, and Elrond nodded. “Shall I call for a bath?”

-o-

For a while, Thranduil was left alone. Elrond was dispensing orders as easily as if this Kingdom were his own. Hot water, his sons, clean sheets. Thranduil paced his room, one slow step after another, one hand clutching his stomach to him, the other finding purchase on tables, wardrobes, the bed, chairs.

He was hot. So hot. His robe clung, his hair stuck. The brazier, lit against the winter’s cold, tossed ash and smoke into the air, cloying, clogging.

The wax dripped from candles along the walls.

Little wax children.

With a burst of strength, he strode across the room, flinging first the windows open, then the double doors that led onto his private balcony. The grey light of midday in wintertime streamed in, as did the wind, a biting thing from the North, edged with the touch of snow. It cooled his flushed cheeks instantly and slammed the doors behind him. As if the bang of stone against stone was a signal, the dark slate clouds burst and the rain began to fall in droves of great, fat drops.

Thranduil was soaked in moments, shivering in minutes, but his body had locked him in place. His fingers clenched on the wet, rounded stone of the balustrade as a rictus of pain seized at his spine. He had no choice but to hang his head and bear it, breath coming in shallow gasps that barely met his body’s needs. He fought back a moan because he could not spare the air. A crushing weight squeezed each disk of his back, hard enough to shatter younger bones than his, and against his will a whine tried to fight through his gritted teeth. The wind whipped any fragment of sound away.

Then there was a rush.

A rush of blood between his thighs.

But the pain had lifted, and he could look down. No crimson, no blood. The liquid that darkened his leggings was clear.

Then the doors were open, Elrond was there, and his touch was molten against marble.

“Your bath is ready.”

-o-

There were times when a Healer, even a Healer as blessed by the Valar as Elrond was, was powerless. This was one of those times.

As Thranduil’s body cycled through the well-trodden phases of childbirth, there was little he could do. He knew Thranduil was transitioning to the final stages, that his muscles were cranking open the tight passage that had formed weeks before, that the pain would soon transform from the grinding ache of the stretch to the fiery sharp agony of a child’s huge blunt head forcing itself through tissue, splitting skin and bone in its wake if necessary.

But all he could do now was watch and wait. Thranduil had shied even from the light, unintentional brush of the half-elf’s fingers as he’d helped the King undress.

In the bath, the blonde was in his own private, liquid world. His hands strayed up and down the huge swell of his stomach, soothing himself as the elflings. The weight and warmth of the water had done something to ease his suffering and though he was not the serene sprite Elrond had spotted in the pool almost two months before, he was coping. Better, he was in control. His lips would tighten as pains intensified, dark brows drawing together, but his breath would drop as Elrond had taught him and he managed.

And Elrond watched. Waited. Washed the sweat and rain water from Thranduil’s hair.

That touch the Elven King could accept. Elrond would have been lying if he claimed not to enjoy it too. Silken strands ran through his fingers, fanning out across the water in a cloud of fine tendrils. Thranduil leaned into Elrond’s touch when he kneaded his scalp, his neck, his temples, and some of the elf’s tension left him. Thranduil bit his lip when the half-elf ran his thumb across the curve of his ear, nostril’s flailing in an inhalation when he caressed the tip.

The bath had to be topped up three times with fresh hot water, and Thranduil’s hair was long rendered knot free, when the Elven King turned onto his front and lifted open eyes to his Healer. The pupils were dark and blown.

“I need to push.”

“Let me check you.”

Thranduil settled without argument, crossing his arms on the side of the tiled bath and resting his forehead against the cushion his biceps made. Elrond stripped, slipped into the water and placed his hand at the wood elf’s entrance.

“I need you to relax,” he stated, the professional tones of a born medic, one who had wrestled countless lives from the jaws of Mandos’ Halls.

Though Thranduil exhaled, and his shoulders bowed, the tendons in his thighs still stuck out like knotted ropes.

So Elrond pressed his hand in careful, comforting circles against the small of Thranduil’s back, and pressed a kiss to his neck.

“Relax for me.” His voice was low, almost a growl, and the tension vanished. Elrond’s fingers slipped inside. Thranduil gave a soft huff of discomfort, but Elrond was done. “You are ready. You can push when the pain starts to swell again. Stop and rest when it fades. Let me fetch my sons.”

“No. Just you.”

“I cannot look after you and three babes,” Elrond reminded him. “Let me tell them to get ready and wait outside, they will only come in when I call.”

-o-

A whole year he had waited for this day. Nay, longer truly – centuries since he first carried and lost a child, a tiny shattered thing of mottled flesh and veiled button eyes and a battlefield’s lost potential. Millenia since his first heat and the knowledge his body could potentially do this thing, perhaps, perhaps. Thranduil had stood in the presence of the greatest goods and greatest evils this realm had to offer. He knew power. He held his own not insubstantial magics. Yet the force which took hold of his body in those hours was at least comparable. Primal, urgent, all consuming.

There was nothing in his mind but the urge to push, as undeniable as a hurricane. The floods of pain that crashed through his back, his thighs, his stomach, his throbbing core – the thundering sensation was as heavy as a waterfall, and as relentless. His breath was the one thing he could fight to control under the assault that raged within his form, dragging in and holding vital breaths as Elrond commanded.

He was at least conscious of Elrond, the Rivendell Lord too substantial a presence in his own right to ignore. He felt those clever half-elven hands wick moisture from his brow and his lip with soft, cold cloth, and tease strands of hair from his cheek. For a time, he buried his face in the half-elf’s thigh, gripping the flesh tight as the pain soared. At other moments, Elrond was in the water with him, bearing his weight at his side, easing the ache in the badly rent muscles of his back.

As the time grew closer, the final element joined the battle in the depths of Thranduil’s body. Fire leapt up and the woodelf cried out, a real shout, his first sound in hours.

“Ai, ai, ai,” he panted, breathily, the sounds highpitched in the air as the burn intensified. He twisted, trying to get away, slopping water over the side, not caring that Elrond watched him because it  _hurt._

“Push when the pain comes, Thranduil.” That stern voice cut through the wood elf’s whimpers, the one Elrond used to remind him he too was a Lord, for the times the King forgot.

“It is coming.” He could not push into this, and there was no reason: the child was forcing its way through his flesh without any effort from him.

Elrond’s hand took his, guided it between his thighs. No, no, too sensitive, too much. But their joint palms found a bulge instead. Hair. A head.

“Yes, she is. But she will not come without you. The spasm will come and you will need to push.”

But Elrond was wrong, the pain was constant, the fire between his legs as he split apart an agony.

Then the contraction came on top of it, somehow its own distinct, constricting hurt.

And though his breath was shaking in a low moan as ceaseless as the burn, a futile protest, Thranduil pushed. He felt the lips of body stretch but only a fraction, despite the effort he was making. The volume of his groan rose as his effort did, each straining muscle in constant protest – until the spasm faded and he was granted a moment of mercy.

His palm was at the head of the child and – ai, Elbereth, was it slipping back in?

“Distract me,” he ordered. “Now, distract me.” The child was receding with every gasp, he was sure.

Then Elrond’s hand was on his cock, circling the tip in relentless circles, with firm pressure and the Elven King let out a sob of a different kind.

“Yes, yes,” he hissed.

And then the pain overwhelmed him again and Elrond’s hand was gone and Thranduil was pushing and that was definitely movement. But the water was too insubstantial, his fingers were scrabbling for purchase on the tile and sliding when they found none, he couldn’t brace, almost – ah! It was fading again, so quickly, he hadn’t made enough progress, the child still locked within.

Whirling, Thranduil turned to Elrond. “I need to get out. I need better purchase.”

“Hold onto me, push against me.” But in the water, even this elf’s strength would not be enough.

“No.”

They were halfway up the steps when the pain surged again, without warning. Thranduil’s belly was above the water and without its warmth and buoyancy the spasm’s potency seemed to double.

“Ah!” Thranduil’s cry echoed in the cavernous space and his legs buckled. In a flash, Elrond was there to guide hands that clung to a distended abdomen over smooth, creamy, half-elven shoulders. In another, Elrond slotted his feet against the steps.

“Push, Thranduil. Bear right down for me.”

Thranduil did. The position was perfect. His legs spread just so, his feet secure, Elrond’s weight a counterbalance, the Rivendell Lord’s hands a gentle comfort. And the child was moving. The wood elf buried his head in Elrond’s neck and pushed and pushed for a long minute of heaving muscles. The pain sharpened, the ring of fire edged with knives, and he had to stop, panting.

“Elrond…” Heady, breathless, desperate. He had gasped Elrond’s name like that before on countless nights. Because layered just beneath the pain was something else vying for his attention, as the child’s elbow, hip, something pressed hard against the most potent gland in his body. A throbbing source of pleasure. Elrond took his cock in hand again and Thranduil almost sobbed.

For the longest half an hour of his life, Thranduil swooped, trembling, between two extremes. At the one, the exquisite friction of Elrond’s fingers and pressure on his prostate had him writhing. At the other, the strain of all his lower muscles shoving his first living child into existence and the merciless pain that came with it. His body was thrust, panting and helpless from one to the other, pain-laced pleasure to deep scorching pushes, until finally - with his fingers tearing into Elrond’s shoulders and a great, stifled roar cut short - the child’s head came free.

Then Thranduil’s hips were juddering, his head throwing back, his mouth hanging open as the babe’s shoulders slammed into the tiny sack within him. The flood of bright hot sensation was too much. It was all he could do to grab his cock before the orgasm he’d been chasing for almost an hour crested over him. Finally.

But he was given no respite. The urge to push returned immediately, and he sank deep into the water, knees wide bearing down with every straining muscle his lower body possessed, until at a last a child slid into the water.

-o-

A light trembling had taken hold in Thranduil’s limbs. From aftershocks, from fatigue, from the fact no servant had been in for an hour and the water was cold. But the Elven King did not seem to notice his body’s surrendering for he had an elfling in his arms. An elfling that kicked and squirmed and squalled in displeasure. An elfling that was very much alive.

“Let’s get you both into bed,” Elrond suggested, and Thranduil followed his touch – though he moved like a crone, each step as if against a great weight, he obeyed Elrond who wrapped him in towels that had been placed near the fire and then in layers of blankets in the great bed in the next room.

“Is she hungry?” was the only thing Thranduil asked, staring at rosebud lips.

“Do not feed her yet.”

“Why?”

“It will bring on the next child and you need to rest.”

At that, Thranduil finally did look up. A question flared on his lips, then died. They pressed together, determined, instead. His skin was still shivering, flesh outside his control, and the weariness was clear in his eyes.

“Will you let Elrohir make sure she is alright?”

“She is perfect.”

The younger of Elrond’s twins stepped into view, deliberately close to his father. He pitched his voice just as low and calm as Elrond’s. “I am sure she is. But if I may, I will check her heart, her breath, just in case.”

With great reluctance, Thranduil handed over the tiny she-elf.

“Now will you let me grant you a short rest? Recover your strength for the next two?”

“Ada, are you sure?”

Elrond shot Elladan a warning look. “The remaining two are identical, they will come swiftly after each other. This will be his only chance. This one cost you.” This last statement Elrond directed to Thranduil.

Still dazed, Thranduil nodded. His empty hands flexed. “Do what you think is best.”

“Close your eyes.” Elrond helped the Elven King find comfort among his pillows, propped half on his side, one arms slung over the home that still held his sons. His weight dragged him down into them, his exhaustion an anchor, and sleep came the moment Elrond touched his brow. By the time the half-elf had tucked a blanket about the Elven King’s shoulders, the shivering was easing, muscles relaxing, breath deepening.

Elladan’s voice came once more, low and urgent. “You know there is a risk to the babes with magic like that.”

“I know.” Elrond smoothed blonde hair back from Thranduil’s face and lay a towel between his braid and his neck, to prevent him catching chill. “But there is risk to him and them without it too.”

-o-

For an hour, Elrond and his eldest son watched the King sleep, while his youngest son tended to the Greenwood’s first princess. Two wetnurses had been hired months before and one attended to the elfling’s needs while Thranduil rested. At some point, the Rivendell Lord too began to doze, wearied by hours of concern and concentration throughout the day’s labour. But his momentary rest was interrupted by the squeeze of a hand at his arm.

“Ada!” Elladan hissed, physically jerking him to consciousness.

As Elrond had drifted off facing Thranduil, he saw it at once. Something flickered within Thranduil. The light of one of the elflings dipped and winked like a flame in the breeze.

“Wake.”

-o-

How could something as soft as cotton be as heavy as lead? Every muscle in Thranduil’s body ached and resisted any efforts he made to twitch or shift, let alone rise. Yet that is what they demanded of him, the elves on the other side of the fog.

Then the paid twisted and changed, concentrating in his gut, and he remembered.

One down, two to go.

“Again?”

“Yes Thranduil, again. I need to examine you.” It was the Healer speaking, and when Thranduil rubbed a hand across his eyes he understood why: a pillar Elrond’s shape, his colouring, but not his presence, loomed at his shoulder. It disappeared when Elrond muttered a word that Thranduil did not understand.

Then they were alone again and Elrond was helping lever him upwards. Thranduil shifted under his instruction to sit at the edge of the bed, legs spread, hunched over the swell of his stomach – a stomach that did not seem greatly diminished. But he hurt too much for the birth of his daughter to have been a dream. His hair cascaded over his shoulder, wild and tangled.

Elrond smoothed it back from his eyes and, kneeling before the Elven King, spoke quickly. “We need to get your second child out. He is distressed and needs to be born now. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“What must I do?” Thranduil’s hands found his belly, as if that would help.

“Elladan will prepare you a potion that will drive your labour forwards. It will hurt,” Thranduil could not help a soft grimace of laughter at that. “While he does that, I need to check the right child is aligned, that he is in the right position. If not, I will need to try and turn the babes.”

“Do what is needed. Everything that is needed.”

Elrond rose up on his knees and reached for Thranduil’s stomach. There was a deep tenderness within each band of muscles that Elrond probed and pressed against, pushing through the natural resistance of flesh to trace the shape of the babes. Thranduil waited, still ignoring all that roiled within him. Then Elrond drew away and nodded.

“The right head is engaged. Your body is on our side today.” Thranduil’s thigh was subject to a light caress. “Is there anything you want?”

“I want you to tell me he will live.”

Elrond was silent, but his gaze unwavering. It was Thranduil that dropped his head.

“How long until the potion is ready?” He could feel the slow grind of active labour resurfacing deep within his centre, but the desire to push was an echo of what it had been, the pain a shadow.

“A few minutes more.”

“You said nursing could encourage the next babe to descend.”

“Your daughter has fed.”

But Thranduil’s hands were at his chest by the time Elrond had finished speaking. The sacs he cupped were full to bursting and spurted when he squeezed them. But beneath his thumbs alone, he could coax a dribble at best from the nubs through he pinched the nipples until they hurt, tugged each mound like a cow’s udder, knuckles flexing, twisting.

Then Elrond’s lips were there. They gentled the bruising skin with kisses, before descending to the wood elf’s nipples. The suction was immediate, demanding, and Thranduil’s body responded to the pull at once, letting the milk stream into the Rivendell King’s mouth.

“Thank you, thank you,” Thranduil whispered. Instinct drove his hand to cradle the half-elf’s dark-topped skull, keeping him in place as he had that morning, his most potent shield against the pain. Elrond must have recognised the similarity as well, for the next suck came with a touch of teeth.

Elrond had just pulled away from Thranduil’s second breast when Elladan returned, goblet in hand. Thranduil drained it, rivalling his lover’s thirst and waited. And waited.

Then roared.

Hammer against anvil. Battering ram against door. The collision of one army against another. But the anvil, the door, the army was his body. The force of it flung Thranduil’s body forwards and he clutched at his abdomen in futile protest. He twisted against the maelstrom happening within him, against the surge of pain, against his muscles clenching and opening and the child descending.

“Ah, oh – oh.” He could gasp nothing more coherent than that.

Dimly, he was aware of Elrond’s son taking a seat behind him, holding one leg far from his body, while Elrond took the others, spreading him wide. He knew, somehow, that his efforts to curl away from the agony were futile but still he struggled.

Then Thranduil felt a hand on his cheek turn his chin, and he was forced to look into Elrond’s eyes. “Push, Thranduil.”

And Thranduil pushed. Into the pain, following the rhythm Elrond set for him. Pushing, breathing, inhale, exhale, exhale, exhale – no do not gasp, inhale, push, push, push, no do not stop, push, push, push. And breathe, start again.

Thranduil’s fingers were clamped into the side of his bed, his thighs trembled, his hair tumbled across sweat slicked skin as he forced his child into the world.

Then came the words, “Almost there.”

Of course, Thranduil knew, could feel the fire, the bulging lips of his body about to bring a new being into the world.

“Ada…” Why was there warning in the youngling’s voice?

“I know.” Why was Elrond cold?

And Thranduil realised he did not want to know. And already knew. He did the one thing that was in his power and bore down, through the last contraction had faded, though the stern snap of Elrond’s voice turned on him now and ordered him to stop.

He pushed harder.

The split was terrible. The tear a new agony, compounded. But the head emerged as Thranduil marshalled every muscle to his will, and then the shoulders, and he was left panting, wrecked, bleeding.

“The child, the child.”

“Elladan, take the babe,” Elrond was saying. The cord was already cut.

“No! You.” It was all Thranduil could manage. He could feel the next stage starting again. The sheets beneath him were turning red as Elrond fled the room.

-o-

Elrond did not return but Thranduil’s body would not wait. What the half-elf’s magics had started, he would finish.

Propping himself up on the bed, the pain in his back soon became unbearable. He slid to the ground on his knees, and folded his arms upon the mattress, using it to find an angle as close to comfortable as was possible. Almost on all fours, almost like an animal but not quite, not brought so low quite yet. He forced his legs apart without aid, ready.

This was not like the other children. Not like the violent storm of the first or the sudden avalanche of the second. This Thranduil was ready for.

The earth beneath him leant him its strength, and he pulled energy from crevasses of once living stone as from the deep roots of oak and birch. He inhaled the firmament and followed the rhythm his cells taught him, pushing steadily, breathing regularly, labouring at the speed lava spread across rock in the shadow lands, just as unstoppable. Just as wordless.

He was silent as the child descended, but for the harsh, forced rush of air through his nostrils in and out, in and out, as he commanded it. He was silent as the child crowned, but for the crack of shifting knuckles as he clenched the mattress and pinned every muscle he possessed in place. He was silent as he pushed the child’s head into the world – backwards, stinging, alive – but for one final snarl of pain and effort and victory. One final heave. The shoulders followed. A newborn’s wail broke the silence.

“Take the child,” he ordered Elladan. “Do your checks.” He did not look at the elf who had run the counts in his father’s place, the oldest of a matching set.

Left alone in his cavernous bedroom, the night’s cold began to descend on sweat-slicked flesh. But he stayed where he was kneeling on the stone floor, levering himself up only a little, to complete his final task. Grasping the empty weight of his still descended abdomen to him, permitting himself in solitude to groan but a little at the contractions relentlessly clenching at his sides, his stomach, his back, he expelled the afterbirth once, twice over.

Then he rose on leaden legs and walked away.


	7. Chapter 7

Elrohir found the Elven King stood by the huge cradle in the nursery. The mauve silk of a richly embroidered gown clung to his skin, damp and raw from scrubbing. His hand still clutched at his stomach, as if he had to hold himself together.

“Will you come rest, Majesty? Your room has been cleaned, your bed has been changed. There is food, should you want it. And your children are waiting to meet you.”

“I cannot rest.” The hand that was not at Thranduil’s stomach held tight to the edge of the cradle, pale fingers ringed with jewels and silver turning white against the wood. His legs were spread apart, and the impatience the half-elf had always known of him was etched between Thranduil’s brows.

“Are you still bleeding?” A nod. “I can help if you let me.”

“Send the servants away.”

Thranduil bore the indignity in the same silence he had birthed his final child with.

And they then were brought to him. Two tiny elflings, wrapped in fur. Eyes closed, red faces relaxed, breathing gently in slumber. He traced two tiny noses and two almost hairless brows, he counted two sets of ten toes and two sets of ten fingers. He listened to heartbeats thudding a steady rhythm, so like the one Elrond’s magic had let him listen to when they were inside.

But only two.

He could not ask Elrohir.

“Bring your father to me.”

“He is still working,” Elrohir explained. “On the middle child. He said you must rest.”

It was a long time before Thranduil could surrender and close his eyes.

-o-

Thranduil woke surrounded. Two babes still clutched in his arms, one of the twins in a chair on watch, and Elrond asleep at his side. The Rivendell Lord was scowling in his sleep. Thranduil had never seen that before.

“Majesty, are you well?” came Elrohir’s whisper.

“Quite,” Thranduil lied, ignoring his body’s protests as he eased himself into a sitting position without disturbing the newborns. “You can leave,” he said in the tone that conveyed clearly that ‘can’ meant ‘should’.

“Of course.” But as Elrohir rose, he added, “Ada is drained. It would be best if he was resting too.”

Thranduil shook Elrond from his slumber the moment the door closed. The half-elf jerked awake, eyes wide, darting.

“What is wrong?”

A part of Thranduil’s mind registered that rest had been an effective veil. The exhaustion was written plainly across pallid skin. He ignored it. “You dare ask me what is wrong? My son will never know he had a brother.” Fury raised a wall against the wave of grief.

Elrond was reaching for him, still frowning through dregs of sleep. “Thranduil, no. He lives. I poured… I pulled him back. Elladan is tending to him in the next room. He needs the fire. He is so small, he needs… warmth, the heat.”

Disbelief. “Where?”

“The study.”

With great care, Thranduil laid his eldest and youngest children among the covers, and with less care strode towards his office. A soft cry from within was a punch of hope.

And there he was. This tiny thing. Awake but crying.

Thranduil took him in his arms. Not wax. Not wasted. So alive.

-o-

When Elrond woke again, hours later, he was alone and a weak sunlight streamed into the room. A breath, a check, yes. His magic flared strong again in his veins. He had expended more in one night to wrest the child to life than he had in some time. Because the child was not just one life.

A gentle humming drew the Rivendell Lord from his nest of sheets and towards the study. There he found Thranduil at repose, wrapped in a deep blue robe that glittered with swirls of silver thread. The pale skin of his chest was laid bare as he held one of the infants to him to feed. The other two lay in baskets on each side. His eyes were closed, framed by pale lashes, and a song of his making vibrated through the air.

For long minutes Elrond just watched, hand lingering on the doorframe as the child drank its fill, listening to the murmur of Thranduil’s song and the hungry sucking of the infant. Only when the babe was satiated and propped against its father’s shoulder did the wood elf look up, acknowledge Elrond’s presence.

“Did you put my son’s life in danger by casting your magics on me?” The whisper of violence slithered its warning beneath words that were otherwise soft, lowered for the children’s sake.

“Your sons’ lives would have been at risk if you grew exhausted, as your life would be.” Thranduil was not looking at him, all attention on the child he was attempting to coax a belch from, long pale hand patting a back more narrow than his palm’s width.

“And what, precisely, did I do to indicate to you I would let me strength fail me?” As Elrond watched, the Elven King’s attempt to keep his fury cold had him tensing, coiling and the half-elf’s keen eyes saw the flicker of pain across the pale mask of fury Thranduil turned to him. Babe still in arms, the new father hissed, “It is time for you to take leave of my Kingdom, Lord Elrond. Your errand is complete. This land has no more need of your services.”

-o-

Thranduil ached with the bone deep, all pervasive tenderness reminiscent of warfare. And he was sending away his Healers, including the one who could lift at least some of that hurt.

In the next room, the sounds of Elrond packing filtered through the stone, the open and shut of wardrobes, chests, the clink of glass and ceramic, the supplies Elrond and his sons had brought. Though he could not see, Thranduil was almost certain that Elrond was attempting to stay quiet.

Elrond’s hands were not irreplaceable. There were dozens of eager young things who would be delighted to serve their Lord so. Janwë, even, would do. They would bring oils and fruits and wine – the desire for a glass of deep red Dorwinian in his grasp was a thud to the gut.

But no. He would enforce his own seclusion a while longer, for he would not let them see him like this. What had been worthy of worship was now hideous, stretched skin lax and sagging, flesh not just sore but waterlogged and bloated still preceded him into every room.

He knew without question that Elrond would touch him regardless, but he was ordering those gentle fingers away.

Thranduil’s eyes burst open to find those fingers he dreamed of just inches from his knee. Had he dozed? How long? The children! But all was peaceful, and the soft sounds of breathing – three hearts and lungs as one – were a balm to the quicksilver flash of panic.

“I will not leave without saying goodbye.”

A pause. And Thranduil rose to his feet. Elrond stood his ground and was rewarded when Thranduil slid his hands about the half-elf’s neck and drew him in for one final kiss.

The contact was sweet as first, almost chaste, the soft meeting of lips and nudge of noses. It almost ended there. But then Elrond’s arms were around the King, pulling him in for the tight comfort of an embrace they had both been denying themselves. The simple press of body flush against body. Shared warmth, shared breath, the shared illusion that strong arms could keep a world at bay.

The ugly confusion of emotions churning within Thranduil quieted as Elrond kissed him back.

But he had to pull away. Had to caress Elrond’s cheek one last time. Had to whisper, “Goodbye.”

The peach-soft skin beneath his thumb twitched. But vulnerability cleared the instant it was shown. Elrond lifted his hand to his chest, and bowed his head.

“Imladris is ever at your service.”

Then he was gone.

-o-

Three elves on horseback set out from the great stone keep of the elves of the Greenwood. Sheets of ebony hair caught in the harsh winter wind and whipped out behind them. Each carried a chest strapped to their mount, marks of thanks for the great services they had rendered the fragile Kingdom and its ruler. A cascade of petals in pastel shades had greeted their arrival, but all that awaited their departure was the winter’s first snow, its icy touch finding sober faces.

Their silence, their solemnity, was in great contrast to the elves they left behind. Through the open door, the sound of celebration spilled over as a people toasted, feasted, sung, to welcome the seemingly safe arrival of a princess and two princes. They drank to the health of their newborns, to the health of their King; they traded bets on the names he might choose; the parents reminisced fondly and the newlyweds drew each other closer. Heat, joy, proclamations of health and happiness.

Yet as Elrond urged his horse into a canter, a gust of frigid wind brought him another sound. The high thin wail of a newborn elfling caught at his ear, only to be joined by a second and a third. The noise followed him into the gloom of the trees.

-o-

A single silver flower lay upon the Elven King’s pillow.

On his side table squatted a large stone pot, filled with pungent paste. When the lid was lifted, the scents of mingled herbs filled the air. Lemongrass. Peppermint. Chamomile. Lavender. The sweet white flowers of marjoram.

The King it was intended for tended to his children he waited a millenia for, and refused to wonder if his womb was the only reason all he could feel was empty.


End file.
